Three known classes of collagens have been described to date. The Class I collagens, subdivided into types I, II, III, V, and XI, are known to form fibrils. These collagens are all synthesized as procollagen molecules, made up of N-terminal and C-terminal propeptides, which are attached to the core collagen molecule. After removal of the propeptides, which occurs naturally in vivo during collagen synthesis, the remaining core of the collagen molecule consists largely of a triple-helical domain having terminal telopeptide sequences which are nontriple-helical. These telopeptide sequences have an important function as sites of intermolecular cross-linking of collagen fibrils extracellularly.
The present invention relates to methods of detecting collagen degradation based on assaying for particular cross-linked telopeptides produced in vivo upon collagen degradation. In the past, assays have been developed for monitoring degradation of collagen in vivo by measuring various biochemical markers, some of which have been degradation products of collagen. For example, bone turnover associated with Paget's disease has been monitored by measuring small peptides containing hydroxyproline, which are excreted in the urine following degradation of bone collagen. Russell et al., Metab. Bone Dis. and Rel. Res. 4 and 5, 255-262 (1981); and Singer, F. R., et al., Metabolic Bone Disease, Vol. II (eds. Avioli, L. V. and Kane, S. M.), 489-575 (1978), Academic Press, New York.
Other researchers have measured the cross-linking compound pyridinoline in urine as an index of collagen degradation in joint disease. See, for background and for example, Wu and Eyre, Biochemistry, 23:1850 (1984); Black et al., Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases, 48:641-644 (1989); Robins et al.; Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases, 45:969-973 (1986); and Seibel et al., The Journal of Rheumatology, 16:964 (1989). In contrast to the present invention, some prior researchers have hydrolyzed peptides from body fluids and then looked for the presence of individual hydroxypyridinium residues. None of these researchers has reported measuring a telopeptide containing a cross-link that is naturally produced in vivo upon collagen degradation, as in the present invention.
U.K. Patent application GB 2,205,643 reports that the degradation of type III collagen in the body is quantitatively determined by measuring the concentration of an N-terminal telopeptide from type III collagen in a body fluid. In this reference, it is reported that cross-linked telopeptide regions are not desirable. In fact, this reference reports that it is necessary to use a non-cross-linked source of collagen to obtain the telopeptide. The peptides of the present invention are all cross-linked. Collagen cross-links are discussed in greater detail below, under the heading "Collagen Cross-Linking."
There are a number of reports indicating that collagen degradation can be measured by quantitating certain procollagen peptides. The present invention involves telopeptides rather than propeptides, the two being distinguished by their location in the collagen molecule and the timing of their cleavage in vivo. See U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,504,587; 4,312,853; Pierard et al., Analytical Biochemistry 141:127-136 (1984); Niemela, Clin. Chem., 31/8:1301-1304 (1985); and Rohde et al., European Journal of Clinical Investigation, 9:451-459 (1979).
U.S. Pat. No. 4,778,768 relates to a method of determining changes occurring in articular cartilage involving quantifying proteoglycan monomer or antigenic fragments thereof in a synovial fluid sample. This patent does not relate to detecting cross-linked telopeptides derived from degraded collagen.
Dodge, J. Clin. Invest., 83:647-661 (1981) discloses methods for analyzing type II collagen degradation utilizing a polyclonal antiserum that specifically reacts with unwound alpha-chains and cyanogen bromide-derived peptides of human and bovine type II collagens. The peptides involved are not cross-linked telopeptides as in the present invention.
Amino acid sequences of human type III collagen, human pro.alpha.1(II) collagen, and the entire prepro.alpha.1(III) chain of human type III collagen and corresponding cDNA clones have been investigated and determined by several groups of researchers. See Loidl et al., Nucleic Acids Research 12:9383-9394 (1984); Sangiorgi et al., Nucleic Acids Research, 13:2207-2225 (1985); Baldwin et al., Biochem. J., 262:521-528 (1989); and Ala-Kokko et al., Biochem. J., 260:509-516 (1989). None of these references specifies the structures of particular telopeptide degradation products that could be measured to determine the amount of degraded fibrillar collagen in vivo.
In spite of the above-described background information, there remains a need for effective and simple assays for determining collagen degradation in vivo. Such assays could be used to detect and monitor disease states in humans, such as osteoarthritis (type II collagen degradation), and various inflammatory disorders, such as vasculitis syndrome (type III collagen degradation).
Assays for type I collagen degradation, described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,973,666, can be utilized to detect and assess the rate of bone resorption in vivo. Detection of the rate of bone resorption may be a factor of interest in monitoring and detecting diseases such as osteoporosis. Osteoporosis is the most common bone disease in man. Primary osteoporosis, with increased susceptibility to fractures, results from a progressive net loss of skeletal bone mass. It is estimated to affect 15-20 million individuals in the United States. Its basis is an age-dependent imbalance in bone remodeling, i.e., in the rates of synthesis and degradation of bone tissue.
About 1.2 million osteoporosis-related fractures occur in the elderly each year including about 538,000 compression fractures of the spine, about 227,000 hip fractures and a substantial number of early fractured peripheral bones. Twelve to 20% of the hip fractures are fatal because they cause severe trauma and bleeding, and half of the surviving patients require nursing home care. Total costs from osteoporosis-related injuries now amount to at least $7 billion annually (Barnes, O. M., Science, 236:914 (1987)).
Osteoporosis is most common in postmenopausal women who, on average, lose 15% of their bone mass in the 10 years after menopause. This disease also occurs in men as they get older and in young amenorrheic women athletes. Despite the major, and growing, social and economic consequences of osteoporosis, no method is available for measuring bone resorption rates in patients or normal subjects. A major difficulty in monitoring the disease is the lack of a specific assay for measuring bone resorption rates.
Methods for assessing bone mass often rely on measuring whole-body calcium by neutron activation analysis or mineral mass in a given bone by photon absorption techniques. These measurements can give only long-term impressions of whether bone mass is decreasing. Measuring calcium balances by comparing intake with output is tedious, unreliable and can only indirectly appraise whether bone mineral is being lost over the long term. Other methods currently available for assessing decreased bone mass and altered bone metabolism include quantitative scanning radiometry at selected bone locations (wrist, calcaneus, etc.) and histomorphometry of iliac crest biopsies. The former provides a crude measure of the bone mineral content at a specific site in a single bone. Histomorphometry gives a semi-quantitative assessment of the balance between newly deposited bone seams and resorbing surfaces.
A urinary assay for the whole-body output of degraded bone in 24 hours would be much more useful. Mineral studies (e.g., calcium balance) cannot do this reliably or easily. Since bone resorption involves degradation of the mineral and the organic matrix, a specific biochemical marker for newly degraded bone products in body fluids would be the ideal index. Several potential organic indices have been tested. For example, hydroxyproline, an amino acid largely restricted to collagen, and the principal structural protein in bone and all other connective tissues, is excreted in urine. Its excretion rate is known to be increased in certain conditions, notably Paget's disease, a metabolic bone disorder in which bone turnover is greatly increased, as pointed out above. For this reason, urinary hydroxyproline has been used extensively as an amino acid marker for collagen degradation. Singer, F. R., et al. (1978), cited hereinabove.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,600,132 discloses a process for determination of hydroxyproline in body fluids such as serum, urine, lumbar fluid and other intercellular fluids in order to monitor deviations in collagen metabolism. In particular, this inventor notes that in pathologic conditions such as Paget's disease, Marfan's syndrome, osteogenesis imperfecta, neoplastic growth in collagen tissues and in various forms of dwarfism, increased collagen anabolism or catabolism as measured by hydroxyproline content in biological fluids can be determined. This inventor measures hydroxyproline by oxidizing it to a pyrrole compound with hydrogen peroxide and N-chloro-p-toluenesulphonamide followed by colorimetric determination in p-dimethyl-amino-benzaldehyde.
In the case of Paget's disease, the increased urinary hydroxyproline probably comes largely from bone degradation; hydroxyproline, however, generally cannot be used as a specific index. Much of the hydroxyproline in urine may come from new collagen synthesis (considerable amounts of the newly made protein are degraded and excreted without ever becoming incorporated into tissue fabric), and from turnover of certain blood proteins as well as other proteins that contain hydroxyproline. Furthermore, about 80% of the free hydroxyproline derived from protein degradation is metabolized in the liver and never appears in the urine. Kiviriko, K. I. Int. Rev. Connect. Tissue Res. 5:93 (1970), and Weiss, P. H. and Klein, L., J. Clin. Invest. 48:1 (1969).
Hydroxylysine and its glycoside derivatives, both peculiar to collagenous proteins, have been considered to be more accurate than hydroxyproline as markers of collagen degradation. However, for the same reasons described above for hydroxyproline, hydroxylysine and its glycosides are probably equally non-specific markers of bone resorption. Krane, S. M. and Simon, L. S. Develop. Biochem., 22:185 (1981).
In addition to amino acids unique to collagen, various non-collagenous proteins of bone matrix such as osteocalcin, or their breakdown products, have formed the basis of immunoassays aimed at measuring bone metabolism. Price, P. A. et al. J. Clin. Invest., 66: 878 (1980), and Gundberg, C. M. et al., Meth. Enzymol., 107:516 (1984). However, it is now clear that bone-derived non-collagenous proteins, though potentially a useful index of bone metabolic activity are unlikely, on their own, to provide quantitative measures of bone resorption. The concentration in serum of osteocalcin, for example, fluctuates quite widely both normally and in metabolic bone disease. Its concentration is elevated in states of high skeletal turnover but it is unclear whether this results from increased synthesis or degradation of bone. Krane, S. M., et al., Develop. Biochem., 22:185 (1981), Price, P. A. et al., J. Clin. Invest., 66:878 (1980); and Gundberg, C. M. et al., Meth. Enzymol., 107:516 (1984).